BHARUCH: The rail traffic on Ahmedabad-Mumbai route was badly affected and hundreds of daily commuters were stranded on railway stations for over three hours due to a major break down on Tuesday in Over Head Equipment (OHE) wire near Bharuch railway yard.

Western Railway maintenance department sources told TOI that the wire passing between Chavaj and Bharuch railway stations fell after Vadodara - Bhilad Express had passed. "Luckily the wire fell on a deserted place and a tragedy was averted," they said. The wire snapped at about 8.30 am following which at least nine superfast, express and passenger trains going towards Mumbai on down track were rescheduled. The repairing vessel of the Western Railway replaced the whole wire on Bharuch yard after some time.

AK Shrivastav, divisional railway manager, Western Railways, said, "Generally we check the strength of the OHE regularly. However, on Tuesday the wire got entangled with the engine of Bhilad Express and broke. We took three hours to replace the wire and until then the rail traffic on down track on Delhi- Mumbai route was affected."
The daily commuters going towards industrial towns like Ankleshwar and Vapi were the most hit. The rail traffic was restored after 12.30 pm.